The Treasure of the Sierra Madre [Hardcover]

 

 

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The movie is of course famous, and deservedly so. It is one of one of the very best films made during perhaps the peak period of the Hollywood studio system. The direction, cinematography and peformances are all flawless. But sadly, very few people seem to even realize that it was adapted from a novel. Even fewer have read it. And this is truly a remarkable novel. The mysterious B. Traven (there were two nonfiction books published about trying to uncover his true identity) writes with passion and power. His portrayal of Dobbs' descent into madness is one of the great psychological character studies in all of fiction. His descriptions of the Mexican people and landscape all have the ring of truth. (Probably no author has ever so successfully immersed himself in a foreign culture. It is hard to believe that he is not himself a native of this land.) He makes the minute details of prospecting into something fascinating. And even through extended discourses on a range of subjects from desert topography to the Mexican lottery system to the horrific treatment of the indiginous people by the Spanish colonists, he never loses the thread of the story. And he is above all else a master storyteller. Comparisons to Steinbeck, Jack London, Dickens come to mind. Add to that the psychological depth of a Dostoyevsky and the crusading spirit of an Upton Sinclair. So even if you've seen the movie, don't miss out on this novel. It is one of probably only a few cases in which a great novel was made into a great film, and each stands on its own as a masterpiece. (I can think of "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Wuthering Heights" but not too many others.) And then go on to read the rest of Traven. The grim realities of which he writes may be strong medicine for some, but there is an underlying love of the underdog and faith in a better future that shines through.

After reading this book, I was amazed at the drift and contrasting focus of this book. At first, I could not figure out whether the first passages are meant to introduce us to our heroic protagonist so as to have him remain a hero. Did he mean for the main character, Dobbs, to be a hero? While in South America, a victim of oil company greed, Dobbs is somewhat likeable and is an everyman as a bum. Then Traven carries the story into the gold mines of Mexico and gradually allows him to deteriorate into a greed driven paranoid maniac. Was this a drift in the writer's original intention? We are left wondering whether he meant to take the character of Dobb, a vagabond American, and transform him from a relatively hopeful bum struggling to survive in Latin American into a greed possessed and self destructive monstrosity. The ugly male dialogue is full of nasty testosterone and competition. Males on the margin communicate very directly with each other, as evidenced by Traven's colorful insults. Whereas some critiques point out that his male to male stuggles are similar to Earnest Hemingway; others indicate he has developed the social consciousness and economic context surrounding his characters like Upton Sinclair. I would like to point out that his talent for embedding stories within stories is similar to the English writer, A.S. Byatt. His embedded stories are swift tangents, totally relevant to the movement of the main theme, and yet a distanced commentary. For example, one story is about a hard scrappy widow women gold miner who brings her gold to the capital fighting every kind of low class riff raft and thieves as she makes her way out of the jungle and into civilization. Yet, the upper class steal her fortune and cause her to disappear. A cautionary tale that greed is far beyond class lines and in fact may even be less openly evident in the wealthy, but surely just as deadly. The character of Howard, the man who has learned through trail and error to control his greed so as to keep his life was developed beautifully by Traven. He seems too mature and wise to be true and yet he remains true. The novel can be taken at various levels. A structural approach would see all the characters as victims of economic oppression, fighting each other like rats in a jar. Yet the individual character development would argue against this interpretation. Dobbs became evil, Howard remained sane. I found the book to be excellent. Tension filled, strong dialogue, unexpected character development, socially conscious, culturally reflective, rough, and elegant in its time honored message.

I decided to read this book because I was a fan of the movie. I had actually been unaware that it was a book, but when I saw a copy of it for sale, I decided to buy it. I just finished reading it, and it's a great book. A great cautionary tale about the evils of greed. It also gives a vivid description of what Mexico was like in the early 1930s, and what prospecting was like. They should be teaching this book in school.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!
I am nineteen years old and just finished this book and I thought it was a classic tale of greed. It is one of my all time favorite reads. Read more

Published on Dec 21 2002 by Colby Jordan

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vital Novel for All Time
Traven deserves recognition as one of the great social novelists, right next to Stienbeck and Orwell-anyone who wonders why need only to read this, his most well-known work... Read more

Published on Sep 18 2002 by A. Ross

5.0 out of 5 stars The immortal story of Gold and Greed
The narrative follows the adventures of three gold prospectors, all down-and-outers, heading to Mexico as buddies with dreams of avarice, only to become entangled in fierce... Read more

Published on May 14 2001 by TheIrrationalMan

4.0 out of 5 stars greed is bad
The story of B. Traven is as fascinating as any of his novels. A resident of Acapulco, Mexico, who wrote in English, he carefully clouded the issue of his real background, so... Read more

Published on Jan 8 2001 by Orrin C. Judd

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best adventure books of all time
What is there to say about this classic? Everything about it, from the prose to the plot, is sheer brilliance and delight. Put me down as a Traven fanatic.

Published on Oct 27 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A world classic
Though it was written more than 70 years ago, Traven's Treasure of Sierra Madre holds up beautifully. Read more

Published on Feb 4 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic western yarn!
I don't read many westerns because they are just not my main interest when it comes to a book catagory. However, I did read this book and was extremely impressed. Read more

Published on Feb 4 1999 by Jerry Dean

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Relevent, and Oooooh Such a Page Turner.
B Traven weaves a parable of timeless relevence over the wild mountains of Mexico. As a parable, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre lectures not only to the gold-obsessed... Read more

Published on Jun 17 1997

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